Citing disappointing results during its beta, Creative Assembly announced today that Total War: Arena will shut down in February. “Arena has been on a long journey, and we are thankful to everyone who joined us,” wrote Joshua Williams, head of Creative Assembly’s developer communications. “It has been an absolute privilege to work with you all on this project, but unfortunately the results of Arena Open Beta Test did not meet all our expectations.” Williams didn’t explicitly say what that meant, but it’s likely Total War: Arena, a free-to-play multiplayer game of Total War's signature real-time battles, didn’t attract enough players for it to be a financially viable project. Arena has been in the works for several years, with an on-again, off-again development period before launching into Open Beta in February this year. When it did, it surprised us with how solid an experience it was, even without the usual Total War strategic layer. The 10v10 battles gave each player control of three formations, which could be drawn from Greek, Roman, Carthaginian, or barbarian factions.